This week we have been treated to TV coverage of the Popes visit to Turkey. Today the Pope and the Patriarch met together for prayer in the Cathedral Church of St. George. It was wonderful to see these two leaders together and to hear them commemorated together during the prayer service. They prayed together and spoke wonderful words to each other.
All of this saddens me in a way also. Tomorrow the two men will be together again in the greatest expression of our Christian faith, the Eucharistic Celebration. In the Divine Liturgy we pray for each other and for unity in all things. How sad will it be at the moment of communion that not everyone will take the precious Body and Blood of our Lord. How wonderful it would be to see Benedict and Bartholomew receive from the same cup. I wonder what kind of shock wave would be sent through the Christian world if that was to happen tomorrow. What a way to say we truly are brothers.
Now I know it will not happen, and for various reasons it cannot happen. But what a day that will be when we are all worshiping together again as it says in the creed that we all say at each liturgical celebration… “One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.”
